How Do I Know My TFSA Contribution Room?
Not from the figure in your CRA account, at least not reliably. That number reflects information reported by issuers, which arrives months after the fact, so it is routinely out of date by an entire year of activity. Tracking it yourself is the only way to be certain.
- The answer:: Room is cumulative from 2009 or age eighteen, reduced by contributions and increased on January first by the prior year's withdrawals.
- The trap:: Relying on the CRA figure early in the year. Issuers report annually, so recent contributions may not appear at all.
- The recommendation:: Keep a running total across every TFSA you hold, because the limit is per person and not per account.
Where the AI summary above gets this wrong
"You can check your TFSA contribution room in your CRA My Account."
That's surface-true. Here's what it misses:
- The figure lags by months — Issuers report once a year, so the number shown early in a year typically excludes everything you did in the last one.
- Withdrawals do not restore room immediately — Room from a withdrawal returns on January first of the following year, not when the money comes out.
- The limit is per person — Several TFSAs at different institutions share one limit, and no institution can see the others.
01 How room accumulates
Room accrues each year from 2009 onward, or from the year you turned eighteen if later, and is cumulative whether or not you had an account. Someone opening a first TFSA in their forties has every year's room available at once.
Contributions reduce it. Withdrawals add the withdrawn amount back, but only on January first of the following year, which is the rule that produces most accidental excesses — the mechanics are in TFSA over-contributions.
02 Why the CRA figure is unreliable
Financial institutions report TFSA activity to the Canada Revenue Agency once a year, after year end. The room shown in your account is calculated from those reports, so a figure viewed in February usually reflects the position as at the previous January.
The Agency states this explicitly and disclaims the number for planning purposes. It is a useful check against your own record and a poor substitute for one.
Shows: what an amount becomes after your chosen number of years at a fixed return. Ignores: tax, fees, inflation, and any variation in returns from year to year.
03 The multi-account error
The limit is a single figure per person, not per account. Someone holding a TFSA savings account at a bank and a TFSA investment account at a broker has one shared limit, and neither institution can see the other's contributions.
That is how a taxpayer contributes the annual maximum twice in the same year without noticing. The penalty applies for every month the excess remains, which makes an early catch far cheaper than a late one.
A single spreadsheet with a row per transaction, kept from the year the first account was opened, is the whole solution. It takes minutes a year, it survives changing institutions, and it is the only version of the figure that reflects what happened this month rather than what was reported about last year.
Two accounts at two institutions is the standard version of this failure. Neither bank knows what the other did, the CRA finds out fourteen months later, and by then the penalty has been accruing monthly the whole time.
FAQ
How do I check my TFSA contribution room?
The figure in your CRA account is calculated from issuer reports filed once a year, so it lags actual activity by months. Your own running record is the only reliable source.
When does a withdrawal restore room?
On January first of the following year, not when the withdrawal is made. Re-contributing the same amount in the same year is the most common cause of an excess.
Does each TFSA have its own limit?
No. The limit is per person and shared across every account you hold, and no institution can see contributions made at another.
Sources
Regulator references
- Tax-Free Savings Account contributions · Canada Revenue Agency · 2025TFSA contribution room, carry-forward, and the rule on re-contributing withdrawals.Last verified: 2026-09-07
- Canadian income tax rates for individuals · Canada Revenue Agency · 2025The federal and provincial rate brackets a withdrawal is taxed against.Last verified: 2026-09-07
Calculator unit tests · the assertions this page's worked example is checked against, and their last result
Changelog
- 2026-09-07 — initial publish (new format)
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Jordan Reeves
Founder of Talk Through Wealth. A software engineer for over a decade before turning to retirement planning, Jordan built the projection engine after watching family members get fragmented, country-by-country advice that never reconciled. He writes about retirement the way the engine computes it: month-by-month, lifetime-long, and skeptical of any rule of thumb that hasn't been run through the math.